E Loves M
by Yitz
Summary: Myra contemplates her life with Edward and her final hours in Dauntless.


I remember Dauntless.

Why was I there? Who was I supposed to be? Dressing in all black, pummeling people with my tiny fists. What made me think I belonged there? It was only him – old Edward, old love. The boy I would have followed anywhere, and did, and ended up where I shouldn't have been, not for a minute. But there I was, fighting and consistently losing. Hitting the floor, blacking out, waking up in the hospital again, vowing to make a change somehow. I wanted desperately to escape, but where would I go? And I couldn't leave Edward.

That's how young girls are: vulnerable, fragile, looking for direction. And he was there, and he wanted me, and that felt too good to let go of. His love was like a shell that I thought was impenetrable: nothing could touch me, not the pressure of the upcoming Choosing Ceremony, nor whatever future lay for me afterward. Edward and Myra; E and M. Together forever.

I thought he was crazy when he brought up choosing Dauntless. Surely he had to be joking; we were both smart enough to stay in Erudite. But I tried to make myself see it, tried to imagine tougher, muscular versions of the two of us, in black clothing and wearing confident smiles. The more I considered it, the more acceptable the vision seemed. I felt sure that things would work out as long as I had Edward by my side. And in any case, he'd made up his mind to go, and I couldn't contemplate a life without him, so I promised to go, too.

The aptitude test came and went – Edward proudly revealed that his result had indeed been Dauntless. Mine was Erudite, but what did it matter? At that point it did not occur to me that Edward would be headed for where he was told he rightfully belonged, whereas I was being defiant. Not in a brave way that would have suited the Dauntless tenets, but in an irresponsible way. There was nothing brave about choosing to leave my faction so that I could stay with my boyfriend.

At that time, the life I envisaged for myself was filled with Edward. The importance of anything else – faction separatism, my friends, and even my family – fell away in comparison. Yes, it was love, but that silly adolescent flavor of it, where it makes you blind. And blind I was when I cut my hand and let my blood fall onto the coals. I remember the pang of regret as I watched it sizzle; for the smallest moment in time, I felt I had made a grave mistake. But I did not look back at my parents or my siblings. I turned and marched forward and sat with the other Dauntless, next to Edward. He smiled at me and took my hand, and held it for the rest of the ceremony.

I had never fought anyone before. In Erudite, any conflict was solved through a debate, a battle of wits. Those who dared to raise their fists were deemed foolish. What good was an Erudite who lacked the intelligence to engage in verbal resolution? I was always one to avoid participating in these arguments myself, preferring to listen on and absorbing what information I could. As a child, my father once told me to try to learn at least one new thing every day, and I've always tried my best to follow his advice, even today.

But nothing that I had stored in my mind prepared me for the ring. The first time I felt the pain of being punched, it made something blossom in me – not the courage I so desperately needed, but fear. I knew that my tiny arms with their feeble hits would never be good enough to keep me here. Every time I fought, I promised myself I would push a little further. But my very best just didn't seem to be good enough.

Edward tried to help me. He was the best fighter there, by some magic, and we'd get up in the middle of the night and go practice. "Look at this move," he'd say. "Do what I do." After a while, though, he'd start to get frustrated with me. "_No,_ Myra. Do it like _me._" Eventually he'd just throw up his hands and declare we'd done enough for that evening, and we'd go back to the dorm, where I would climb into his bed with him and wrap my arms around him.

Amazingly, Edward was not the only one willing to give me extra guidance. Our instructor, Four, asked me to meet him once during dinner, where he tried to show me how to be better. "Put that Erudite brain to work," he said. "You need to think tactically. Analyze people, find their weak spots. Hit when the timing is right. You can do this."

But I could not do it. If I improved, then it wasn't adequate, because I still lost again and again. I was used to it by now, and my fellow initiates were too; when someone was matched with me, they'd look at me with sympathy or boredom, knowing that I was the frail girl, the one who could be easily beat. Even the transfer from Abnegation was a far superior fighter to me; she had some drive, some fire that I lacked.

Edward and I did not always sleep together. Sometimes, for whatever reason, I couldn't bring myself to walk across the floor from my bed to his, and on those nights when I stayed alone, my mind was hard at work. I thought endlessly of home, of the days when I had a soft bed in a room of my own. I recalled walking through the huge libraries with towering bookshelves, amazed at all the knowledge waiting for me there. I loved the peculiar, ancient smell of the place, like it was some historical site and I was an adventurer. I realized how much I hated this place, this dark tomb that the Dauntless called home. But Edward was here, and that was good enough – it had to be.

He was the best, and I was the worst. First and last. Strongest and weakest. But he could not protect me when I was in the ring, and he could not help me when I was ranked the lowest. We stared at the blackboard together, reading the numbers and letters that would decide our fate. He was in; I was out. Condemned to be factionless because of my meager fighting ability.

For a moment, I was paralyzed, and then the weight of the situation settled in my mind. I realized what was going to happen: I would lose everything. I would have no home here in Dauntless, and certainly not in Erudite, the faction I'd turned my back on. And, most of all, I would not have Edward. With his first place ranking, he'd be plenty welcome here, a star member. By the time initiation was over, no one would even remember the weak, useless girl named Myra.

Edward touched my shoulder. "It will be alright," he said.

I closed my eyes and my hands made fists. "How could it possibly be _alright?_" I asked in a small voice. I didn't say anything else. I didn't say, "Why did you make me come here?" I didn't say, "Why did you do this to me?" I didn't say, "What's going to happen to me?" I just kept my eyes shut and allowed my body to be pulled into a hug.

I didn't know whether to hate him or to hate myself. It was his decision to choose Dauntless, but the rest he couldn't be blamed for. It was my choice to follow him here, and my fault for failing as a fighter. I tried to force myself to come to terms with my future as a factionless, but it frightened me more than anything ever had. Living among society's castaways, never knowing where my next meal would come from. But it wasn't even those aspects that disturbed me the most; it was knowing that I'd lost everyone I cared about. I had willingly left behind my family and friends to be here, all for Edward, and now I would lose him too.

It was all for nothing. Working up the strength to abandon Erudite, training until I thought I would pass out, being knocked unconscious countless times when I was forced to fight people I could never hope to beat... it had all been a waste of time. I was back at square one – no, I was far worse than that, because at the beginning I had a chance of making it. A small chance, but it was there. I'd jumped off the train and down the hole; I'd done my best to be Dauntless. For him.

I knew Edward still loved me, but I did not, even for a second, consider asking him to give up his place and join me as a factionless. It was inconceivable, a request too heavy to foist on anyone. Nor did I ever believe that he would offer to do it, because... why would he? To volunteer to be factionless is to give your life away. And really, it wouldn't have been honorable, it would have been disrespectful. Rejecting the privilege of being a full Dauntless, for what? So you can hang on to your teenage sweetheart? Nonsense; you'll find another girl. A better one, a tougher one. Let her go. It wasn't hard for me to see this future for Edward. He was number one, and no doubt he'd do well in the second part of initiation, and he'd be offered a great position. He'd think of me from time to time, the girl he had to leave behind, but he would move on. He would learn to live without me as my family had to after I left our faction.

I did not foresee what would happen to him. I can remember the night vividly: hearing Edward's screams, seeing the knife embedded in his eye. I must've gone into shock; I couldn't move, could hardly breathe. I was so overcome that I could not even move to help him – several other initiates stepped in to help as I sat there, trembling like a fool. The truth is that I believed he was going to die. _This is it,_ I thought. _Edward will be dead, and I will be factionless._ When the medics came in and carried him away, I trailed after them as though I were a ghost, some tired specter of Edward's destroyed potential.

I wasn't allowed inside during the surgery. I did not expect to be. Maybe it would've helped to be there, to hold his hand, to tell him it would all be OK. But I did what I was told, which was to stay outside and wait. No one came to talk to me, which was fine; I'd have had nothing to say. And besides, where did I think I was, Abnegation? Amity? Here in Dauntless we supported one another through strength, not pity. Edward's loss was not a tragedy, but a setback. I knew this is what people would say, but in my own heart I did not believe it.

When I was finally permitted to see Edward, he was in a rage. "Everything is ruined!" he screamed. "Everything we worked so hard for!"

Privately, I felt a touch of gratitude, knowing that there was still a "we." I worked my hand into his and forced a smile. "It will be alright," I said, echoing what he'd told me when rankings were posted.

But he only became angrier. "No, Myra! Nothing about this is alright! Don't you get it? You're going to get cut, and now I'm useless here! We can't stay in Dauntless and we can't go back to Erudite. Do you know what we're going to be? Factionless!"

I surprised myself by the fury in my own speech. "It was always that way for me! You knew I wouldn't make it through Dauntless. You knew! But you wanted to be here so badly, and so I followed you, because I love you! But you know? I don't care if we're Erudite, Dauntless, factionless, or whatever! It doesn't matter! The important thing is that..." my voice lowered. "That we're together."

He looked at me. "Together?"

I felt tears in my eyes. "Always."

We decided to leave. Technically, Edward could have stayed; being disabled did not disqualify him from moving on to the next part of initiation. But he didn't want to. Part of it was that he didn't want to go on without me, though I knew it was not only that. I could tell that Edward was disappointed – in himself, in our fellow initiates, in Dauntless culture. This shouldn't have happened, but it did, because someone cared more about being the best than about the wellbeing of another person. I couldn't help but imagine how this behavior would be responded to in Erudite: an intensive search would be carried out for the perpetrator, and then an appropriate punishment would be doled out. But I knew that wasn't going to happen here. It seemed to me that the Dauntless were far too comfortable with violence; they practically lusted after it.

For me this was the instant when it became clear to me that this faction was lost. Idolizing danger is not a substitute for courage – it is simply brutality. Perhaps the Dauntless should have changed their name to the Merciless or the Compassionless. Indeed there was no shortage of bravery here, but there sure didn't seem to be much love.

Becoming factionless was like leaving one world and entering another, to an even greater extent than the transfer to Dauntless had ever been. At least then I was moving within a system; at worst, I was an Erudite traitor, but I was still part of a community, and I still had a place to call home. As I left that place, the Dauntless compound, the underground realm of tunnels and caverns, I knew my life would never be the same. Never again would I be able to walk to the cafeteria at any time and eat my fill, and now it was assured that I would never see my family or friends again.

What could I have done? Run away, and gone where? Where do you go when there's nowhere left, not even home? Of course, home is where the heart is, and my heart was, or was supposed to be, with Edward. And indeed, he was with me as we joined the ranks of the factionless. We ate food out of discarded cans and slept on the ground, but I found a way to be happy. There was something about it that was relieving: escaping the expectations of the rest of the world and never being criticized for not being smart, or strong, or generous, or kind, or truthful enough. Just being yourself, whoever that was.

But I knew it couldn't last. I knew, somehow, that everything good had to end, and the last remaining good thing in my life was my relationship with Edward. It was he who began to change in the end, not me. Maybe I really was the strong one after all, the girl who had seen terror but kept her head up, always believing that her relationship could withstand anything. It was I who learned to be content as a member of the factionless, who stopped caring about prestige and comfort. It was I who never faltered, who never gave up on what I'd said to Edward that night in the hospital: "the important thing is that we're together."

The truth – the bitter, painful truth – was that being together with me was not the most important thing to Edward. His heart turned away from me and toward revenge, and to my shock, he got it. Drew and Molly arrived, exiled due to low rankings. Of course, they'd been Peter's lackeys, the person who had disfigured Edward and prevented him from success in Dauntless. And since Edward couldn't get his hands on Peter, he decided to settle for the next best thing. He wanted them both dead.

I recall the way the attack happened: in the middle of the night, the way Peter did to Edward. I woke up to noise – strange, pained gurgling and coughing. Where was it coming from? I looked over and saw Edward wasn't sleeping next to me, so I tiptoed toward where the noise was coming from. And there, I saw it: Edward was choking Drew. To death. I screamed; I shouldn't have, but I did. I screamed and everyone woke up and saw what was happening, and I knew it was over. I couldn't possibly be with this person, this killer. And he knew it too. He looked over at me with a frighteningly hateful expression.

E and M. Together forever. But forever is a long time, isn't it? Does it mean the rest of your lives, or beyond that somehow? Can any relationship really last that long? Of course, there are elderly married couples, but do they start to love each other less and less as the years go by? Maybe, or maybe, somehow, their love stays strong and deep until they pass on. I honestly don't know.

I didn't achieve forever.

In the end, there was only M.

Myra.

Me.


End file.
